


the long way home

by ygrittebardots



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, Angst, Class Issues, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2221083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrittebardots/pseuds/ygrittebardots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More nights than not, Jon wakes up in the dark, curls plastered to his forehead with sweat, Arya or Sansa or sometimes even Father shaking him awake, assuring him he’s safe, he’s in England, he’s just had a bad dream. He has not slept through a full night since he arrived home, and try as he might not to think of such things, he knows he would sleep better with her by his side.</p><p>Continuation of the WWI AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the long way home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilabut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilabut/gifts).



> And so we have the third part in the WWI AU. This fic stands alone, but it may be worth reading my fic [dulce et decorum est](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2161002/chapters/4724499) and then [not today](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2176581) by [lilabut](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilabut/pseuds/lilabut) first, as this acts as the third part in a trilogy.
> 
> Anna, you're an amazing writer and a beautiful human being, and this literally would not exist without you.

The house is the same as he remembers, the same as he has dreamed of it every night since he and Robb marched away. It’s not the same, though, not really, because in his dreams everything was all too slow, too loud, all at once so much larger and softer and faster and brighter, the reality of it all distorted. 

Jon would find sleep each night in the damp bunker underneath the ground, the constant rivets of enemy fire turned by his subconscious mind into the whirring of bicycle wheels that pound loudly in his ears, the heels of her boots peddling along and the sound of her laughter, the colour of her hair following in its wake. 

Later in the tent and then the hospital, when the pain became all too much and he slipped into unconsciousness once more, Jon would be greeted by the too-bright green of Winterfell’s grounds in summer, the too-busy streets of Winter Town and the too-tall height of the castle walls in the distance, the too-shrill squeak of Bran’s chair as Arya wheeled him away from Sansa’s ire at whatever mischief it is they’ve caused at her expense this time.

It all seems so muffled by comparison now that it’s tangible, within his sight and grasp. Both the click of heels outside his door and the shriek of Rickon’s laughter down in the grounds below feel muffled, but perhaps it’s just a leftover itch from the hushed tones people continue to insist on using in his presence, as if he were a dying man. 

He’s not. 

Not anymore.

Still, it’s a far cry and far preferable to the dreams that take him now at night. His mind’s eye has no idealised version of Winterfell to fall back on now that he’s landed back into its reality, and so occupies him with far less pleasant things. 

Nothing but dust and land the colour of murky clay so far as the eye can see, and men with burnt-out eyes and bloody mouths and guts spilling out from behind their ribs like a grotesque stuffed bear that’s popped a seam. That sweet, deadly smell. Two French girls, angry scars on their arms and faces, sitting outside the ruin of what was once their home. Grenn - a Winter Town boy and his batman since day one - glassy-eyed and unseeing with one foot missing. 

More nights than not, Jon wakes up in the dark, curls plastered to his forehead with sweat, Arya or Sansa or sometimes even Father shaking him awake, assuring him he’s safe, he’s in England, he’s just had a bad dream.

He has not slept through a full night since he arrived home, and try as he might not to think of such things, he knows he would sleep better with her by his side.

 

Ygritte was sorry to see Robb go when he did, for all their sakes. 

For Robb’s, as it means returning to a war filled with danger and terror the likes of which none of them could have predicted two years ago. As for the rest of them - his family most of all, of course, but she’ll not count herself out - his presence had provided an immeasurable boost of stability and comfort, especially in the days when they’d still not known if Jon was dead or just missing. 

To have a person, even just one person, know the hell she lived every day of not knowing… Well, Ygritte doesn’t know that it made the not knowing itself better or worse, but it was certainly a rare moment of solace to catch his eye and know she wasn’t alone. And then Jon came home, and there was someone to share in the truth of her unspeakable joy.

As for Jon himself, well. The horrors he’s seen she can’t even begin to imagine, and he hasn’t left them behind in France. She can tell that Robb’s presence had helped shoulder the weight both men know well, even if only a bit, even if the brothers never really talked about it. 

Now, long after he’s gone, she’s at a loss of what to do.

The Starks have employed a nurse all the way from Blackpool, soft-spoken and kind, but adamant when it comes to her patient. Nurse Westerling won’t suffer unnecessary disturbance in Jon’s room, which means Ygritte sees him only glimpsed in passing during the day and on the rare occasion she can steal into his room at night, when all the others have gone to their rest.

“I hate to keep you from your bed,” he says as she adjusts the weight of herself against his chest so as not to put pressure on his yet-unhealed abdomen. “You’ll be exhausted come morning.”

A small but pleasant shudder stills through her as he ghosts his fingers along the exposed skin of her forearm peeking out from the sleeve of her nightdress, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Ygritte leans over to press a kiss, slow and soft, just behind his jaw. 

“Trust me,” she says, leaning her head into the crook of his collarbone when he wraps an arm around her, and she twines her fingers into his, “I’d rather be here to make sure you’re not going to go disappearing on me again.”

She means it as a joke, but she does mean it.

The ring that rests cool and secure against her breast has lived in that place every day since Jon first slipped it on her finger. When Ygritte thinks about that brisk summer evening in 1914, it hardly feels real. God, they had been children then. Preoccupied with nothing but one other and the stolen season they’d stumbled into, the fantasy world they’d concocted of what their lives would be. A perfect calm before the storm.

Everyone was meant to know by now. They were meant to be married by now.

They haven’t discussed it, nor will she bring it up until Jon’s on his feet and feeling himself once again. The man that lies in bed with half his torso covered in bandages and who knows what else underneath is broken, and tired, and frightened. But he is, at the core, still her Jon. Still the idiot boy she grew up racing horses with, and exploring the heated pools in the caves in the Wolfswood with, and taking the piss out of because it was just so easy. He’s still the man she watched him grow into, who says little but sees everything. He’s still the man she fell in love with.

But he’s also been to hell and back and Ygritte may be anxious at how little they see one another now, but she isn’t cruel and she’ll not press the subject until he’s well enough to fight their corner with her.

Robb may be on their side, but he’s on the continent fighting a war and heaven knows what Lord and Lady Winters will have to say on the subject.

 

He’s walking now, which means no longer being confined to his room. Nurse Westerling is an advocate of fresh air and sunlight, and so Jon now spends much of his days tucked into a chair in the conservatory or on the terrace facing the Godswood to the north. His father joins him there some days to read the paper, though more often it’s Bran, content for once not to strain his arms and torso beyond their strength in trying to keep up with his siblings now that Jon’s likewise chairbound for a time.

Rickon is too wild and full of life to sit still for long, but Sansa’s taken to sitting with them sometimes, offering to read out loud or recount a bit of what he missed while he was away. 

( _Away_ , she always calls it, and he can’t decide if it’s better that way.) 

It’s Lady Catelyn that surprises him, stopping by every once in a while, never to sit, but always to inquire after his health. She never comes when he is alone, he notices, but Jon can’t help but feel, to his surprise, that her concern is genuine. 

He wonders what might have passed through his father’s wife’s mind in those long months when he was presumed dead. Once, when he was much younger and only beginning to understand the complexity of what his birth had done to his father’s marriage, Jon had tried to imagine a younger Lady Catelyn stepping out to greet her wayward sister-in-law, only to find her husband returned from Madrid with his sister’s body and a child that was not hers. He can’t blame her for hating him then. But what would she have felt twenty years later, knowing that same child was gone for good? Joy? Grief? Had she felt anything at all? He simply can’t read the expression on her face.

Arya, on the other hand, has hardly left him alone since he got back, and nothing’s changed on that account. Always bursting in with the news of the day or to pester Nurse Westerling about when Jon will be up for riding out with her again. His youngest sister’s not stupid, she’s nearly fifteen now and knows perfectly well the awful shape he’s in - and it’s the winks she sends his way when the nurse is turned around that let him know that the whole spectacle is entirely for his amusement. 

She is, he knows, under the impression that he’s got precious else to occupy his attention. And while he’s quite grateful to her to think of it, she couldn’t be more wrong.

Ygritte keeps him well stocked in blankets and books, stopping by on the hour like clockwork to tuck the woven wool around his legs where it’s come loose. The urge to take her hands in his at these times is great, the urge to run his fingers through her hair and feel the warmth of her body, her mouth pressed against his. He resists it, but only just, and contents himself with the comfort of her nearness, the brush of her fingers against his, the tongue she sticks out at him when no one’s watching that lets him know that she, at least, sees him for himself and not some broken thing.

She stops by with a basket of books from the library one morning when Nurse Westerling’s just gone back inside for a moment. “The deadliest bores of the lot,” she says with a wink. “Your favourite.”

Thumbing across the bindings, he dimly recognises them - titles like _English Criminal Law_ and _Law of Wills and Administration_ and, of course, _Black’s Dictionary_ at the bottom. He’s read them all before. He had to, during his first year at Oxford, a lifetime ago. He doesn’t remember a thing they say. Jon feels something catch in his throat, and when he looks up at her he feels a burning behind his eyes.

_Why?_

He can’t make his voice find the word, so Ygritte says nothing, busies herself with pouring him a cup of tea instead. All the same, the answer is all too plain.

_Because you were dead, and now life can go on. It has to._

Jon catches her fingers in his when she hands him the teacup.

“Thank you,” he says.

She squeezes his hand, and he never wants to let her go.

 

“Uncle,” she says one day on her afternoon off, feeling anxious and useless and trying her best not to think about the hours that’ve passed since she last saw with her own eyes that Jon’s heart was, in fact, still functioning properly. “Why is it you’ve not joined up?”

Tormund frowns as he finishes brushing down Lady Catelyn’s mare. “You that keen to be rid of me, lass?”

“Oh, aye, you know me,” Ygritte says, rolling her eyes at him, her finger spinning a loose piece of hay up and down her thumb, thickening her accent to match his. “Just counting down the days ’til I can claim that bonny wee cottage for meself.” 

He grumbles something unintelligible under his breath and she laughs. “I’m curious to know, is all.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m keen to die for a cause I’m not sure I believe in.”

 _Or for a country that isn’t mine_ , is what he doesn’t say.

“Besides,” he adds, “who’s to look after you if I were away, eh?”

Ygritte scoffs at that, throws the piece of hay at Tormund - and for all it does no damage, it does catch in his beard without him taking notice, and she certainly counts that a victory. “I _am_ a woman grown, you know. With a _job_ and that. Anyway,” she adds, because she’s feeling daring and restless and her head is most definitely not here in the stables with her uncle, “who’s to say I’ve not got someone else to look after me?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got yourself a fancy man, lass,” Tormund growls, stopping mid-brush.

“And if I have?” she asks, sending the most innocent of smiles his way.

Tormund eyes her suspiciously for a moment, then sets back to work with a shake of the head. “Och, I know you haven’t. And as much as it pains me to say, I trust you well enough to ken your own mind in these matters. Now, go on, away with you and bother somebody else.”

Despite his grumbled protests, Ygritte leaves a fat kiss on his cheek before leaving the stables, smiling despite herself. For all her uncle will likely call her mad when he learns the truth, she can’t help the warm glow that’s settled at the bottom of her stomach, the feeling that somehow everything’s going to turn out just fine in the end.

 

_Still reeling with laughter, Jon hardly manages to catch his breath before the opposing side regroups and he feels himself tugged forward once more. Robb’s hands slip momentarily from their hold around his waist before his brother realises what’s happening and throws his arms more tightly around him, preparing once more for the oncoming surge._

_Directly in front of him, her hands are crossed and locked tightly in his. Jon pays no mind to his brother and the other boys determinedly pulling him back, nor to the chain of boys trailing out from behind her. All he sees are two blue eyes ablaze, a small mouth set tightly in determination, as if daring him to let go._

_At seven years old, it matters little to him that he might lose a round of French and English to a girl. It does, however, matter very much that he might lose it to Ygritte._

_“Heave to, lads!” Robb is rallying excitedly behind him, and Jon grips fast against her hands, his fingers pinched and red and sweating in hers. The tightness of her mouth curves deviously upwards as he grunts through the strain of his efforts._

_“Not feeling tired now, are you, Jon?” she needles him in a brogue too great for a girl so small, great pants of breath escaping between words. “Perhaps you ought to lie down for a wee spell.”_

_Jon grits his teeth and doubles his efforts, straining the small muscles of his forearms as much as he can, yet it does little. Inexplicably, Ygritte is gaining on him, eyes dancing in merry delight as she and her team of village boys pull him and his ever closer, closing the distance between the scuffed toes of his boots and the centre line millimetre by painful millimetre. Every ounce of weight and effort thrown into his arms, Jon cannot understand it._

_And then, all at once, he hears Father’s voice in his head, soft-spoken yet strong and stern as he pats the inside of his thigh and says, “Down here, Jon. Set your weight down here and find the support coming up from beneath. Strength comes from below, where you least expect to find it.”_

_But it’s too late. With a surge of reserve strength, the opposing team gives a rallying tug and with an almighty lurch Jon is sent flying straight into Ygritte, her cheer of victory and the indignant cries of protest and surprise from Robb and the rest of his team nearly drowning out the sudden pounding in his head._

_Only it doesn’t._

_The pounding only grows louder, until all at once it’s all there is, and it’s not in his head, it’s everywhere, the booming of cannons and rivets of guns and snipers. The shouts are not boyish play, it’s the cry of men dying and worse, and Jon, it seems, never stopped flying at all. Not until he crash-lands through the remnants of a bunker ceiling, his broken body flopping like a rag doll against the dusty wooden planks. There’s a sharp tug in his gut the likes of which he’s never felt before, like he’s been carved out by the end of Father’s old bayonet, his insides left to leak out as they will. There’s a pain so white and blinding that Jon can’t see anything else, can’t hear or think, not when he’s so thoroughly caught in the pounding of his own ears and the white and the sharpness and the screams of dead men. So there’s only one thing to do._

_He joins them._

 

It’s well past midnight when the screaming starts. Normally she’d be long in bed by now, but there’s been a bit of a mix-up regarding who’s cleaning the latest blouse Lady Arya’s managed to ruin and somehow Ygritte was landed with the job. She’s only just finished, blouse in hand as she climbs the stairs back up from the servants hall. 

But then the screaming starts and her blood runs cold. Blouse abandoned on the railing, Ygritte pushes her way onto the second floor, heart pumping like mad, through what seems like endless rooms and doorways until finally _finally_ she reaches his room, only somewhere along the way the screams must have become echoes in her own ears and he must have stopped shouting at all because there he is, awake and pale and delirious, Lady Arya at his side, smoothing away the damp curls that’ve come stuck to his cheeks and forehead, staring straight at her.

“S-sorry, milady.” 

She stumbles over the words, heart still racing fast. Lady Arya is looking at her questioningly, and Jon, though sitting up, doesn’t even seem to know where he is. She wants so badly to go to him, to kiss him and hold him and assure him he’s safe and loved and far away from the horrors that won’t leave him be. But she can’t, and that is the worst part of all. 

“I heard screaming,” she explains weakly. “I’ll go.” 

And though every fibre of her being screams in protest, she turns to leave, until a soft, desperate voice stops her in her tracks.

“No.”

Jon’s looking straight at her, still pale and shaking, but with an air of determined recognition. The hand that’s free from his sister’s clutch is held out in her direction.

Ygritte’s heart nearly stops.

She glances nervously at Lady Arya, whose brow is now furrowed in confusion, then back at Jon.

“Master Jon, I - “

“ _Please_.”

And then she realises. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, if he knows who’s in this room and what it all means. And even if he does, all that he needs in this moment is exactly the same as she does. It’s them that matters right now. Propriety be damned, they’ve kept this secret long enough and it’s doing neither of them any favours, most especially him, not when he’s in this state.

Slowly, Ygritte shuts the door behind her and crosses around to the other side of his bed. She doesn’t spare Lady Arya a glance, doesn’t want to see the look on her face when she sits down on the edge, when she takes his hands in hers, when Jon reaches up to sink his fingers in her hair as she presses a fierce kiss to his forehead.

“Jon,” she murmurs against him, thumb caressing the soft skin of his cheek, her other fingers splayed across his neck and jaw. “Jon. You’re safe. You’re _safe_.”

“I can’t go back there.” His voice is thin and trembles, and his hand around hers is an iron grip, and her heart wants to break.

“You don’t have to go back,” she says, wishing tears would spill from those haunted, red-rimmed eyes so then, at least, she’d have something to wipe away, something to fix. “Not ever. No one’s going to make you. I won’t let them.”

Jon closes his eyes and lets out a shaking breath.

“Do you know where you are?” she asks, sounding much calmer than she feels.

“Home,” he says, not opening his eyes.

“And where is that?”

“Winterfell.”

“And who am I?”

“Ygritte,” he says, eyes flying open, a watery smile on his face as he drinks her in. “You’re Ygritte.”

“That’s right,” she says, smiling weakly back at him. “And I won’t be leaving you. I promise. Neither of us will.”

For the first time since closing the door, Ygritte chances a glance at his sister. The look on Lady Arya’s face is entirely unprecedented, a dawning realisation tinged with terrible sadness and a questioning kind of wonder. She’s looking at her and Jon like she’s never really seen either of them until now.

“Arya…” says Jon, but the girl interrupts him before he can go any further.

“No,” she says, and for a terrible moment Ygritte thinks this is the moment where it all starts to fall apart. But then Lady Arya catches her eye and nods, her mouth set tight in determination. “She’s right. I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Things don’t get easier after that, not really, but it’s a relief, at least, to have someone in their corner. Jon doesn’t remember much about that night, but he remembers clearly waking up in the early morning light as Ygritte gently nudged Arya awake, knows they hadn’t left his side for a moment, knows there’s an easy sort of conspiratorial bond that’s grown between them since.

Jon’s not entirely sure why he’d not thought to tell his sister sooner. Perhaps it’s because Arya makes no secret and no apologies for her friendships with the village boys, Lommy Greenhands and the baker’s boy, the one everyone inexplicably calls Hot Pie. Perhaps it’s because he somehow still sees her as the child he left behind. 

In any case, Arya, as it turns out, is a blessed ally.

It’s the little things that help, the things he couldn’t manage without her, like specifically sending Ygritte up with a tray when he’s not feeling up to the whole affair of dinner, or distracting Nurse Westerling with inane questions when Ygritte’s near so they might have a private moment. The nights, of course, have become profoundly easier. He’s still yet to sleep soundly through one, but Arya never fails to run upstairs to wake Ygritte when they become especially difficult to bear.

Arya had felt badly about this at first, but she had been quick to reassure her. “I’d rather be here, milady.”

“It’s Arya,” she says. “None of this ‘milady’ nonsense. Not if we’re going to be sisters.”

Jon has never loved his scruffy little sister so much as then. Arya’s view on the whole matter will likely be disregarded by Father and Lady Catelyn when the whole charade comes to light - and the time’s soon approaching, he can feel it - but to have her blessing and good opinion means the world to him. Besides, Robb will be coming home to visit soon with any luck, and his voice will hold a great deal more weight. He’ll make them see reason if Jon can’t. He has to.

 

The worst part, she thinks, is when Robb comes home much earlier than anyone could have hoped for, because this time it’s for good.

Despite Jon’s painfully optimistic reassurances, Ygritte had feared at the beginning of the war that Robb’s commission would provide him with a measure of safety that a lieutenant’s simply wouldn’t. 

She knows better now. 

The gas that’s ruined Viscount Winters’ eyes had no more care for class and rank than the shrapnel once embedded in Jon’s gut. The skin that rims them is crusted and pink, and Ygritte realises with a jolt that of Lord Stark’s four sons, it is only eight year old Rickon that remains in able health. Bran, poor child, has been confined to his chair since the polio took the use of his legs from him nearly seven years ago.

Lord Stark, however, is among the few fathers of Britain that can still lay claim to all his children still living, and as Ygritte watches him hold on fiercely to his oldest son, she cannot help but think that that is a blessing, no matter the cost.

 

There are white bandages striped thickly across Robb’s eyes and brow when Jon sets eyes on his brother again, Arya’s hand steady on his arm, his own heart furiously beating a steady tattoo against his chest.

There was, God be blessed, no delay in Robb’s arrival. No months of uncertainty, of not knowing whether to mourn or hope, none of the pain or floating about in limbo the way he’s been given to understand his family endured during the long months he fought for survival in France. No, Robb had been scooped out of the trenches by Baron Greyjoy’s son, given a brief respite in an officer’s hospital just long enough to fight losing his eyes entirely, and sent home just as quickly.

Nurse Westerling, who’s only just declared Jon past the stage of true convalescence and simply in need of his family’s care and support so long as he continues to make use of a walking stick, has unpacked her bags and once more busied herself in preparation for a new patient. 

Now, though, she keeps a respectful distance as Robb’s parents sit with him.

Sansa’s gone to bed already, very rightly taking Bran and Rickon with her. Robb looks, to anyone unfamiliar with such sights, like something out of a penny dreadful. Angry red scales snake out from under the bandages and down his neck, and Jon recognises the great patchy scars still tinged a sickly yellow, scars that tell of abscesses inflamed and purged. His arm is in a sling, the bandage round his hand drawing attention to the two smallest fingers. They’re missing. 

And all at once Jon is back in France, surrounded by men in white bandages that stain and fester almost as soon as they’re set in place. He can practically taste the stink of putrid flesh and the acrid smell of stinging medicine forced down protesting throats. Robb doesn’t belong in the company of these horrors. Robb is all life and laughter, with bright eyes and a witty remark always quick upon his lips. He’s always been the leader, rallying Jon to get back on his horse because the fall wasn’t all so bad as that, sauntering over to talk to Roslin Frey on his behalf when he can’t work up the courage to do it himself. Robb’s meant to have the world at his feet. He’s not meant for this.

Jon stumbles for a moment as his grip on his walking stick wavers.

But then Robb glances over - at least Jon _thinks_ it’s a glance, but it’s really his entire head that moves in his direction - and cuts his mother off mid-sentence. “Jon?” he asks, his voice hoarse from disuse. “Is that Jon?”

“Yes,” says Jon, hardly able to get the words out.

And suddenly Robb’s whole face - what’s visible of it, anyway - lights up like a flame, cheeks dimpling handsomely despite the scars. 

 

As Jon is no longer officially under the nurse’s care, it only takes just over fifteen minutes for Arya to convince The Powers That Be - namely her father and a very nervous Lady Sansa - that Jon is more than capable of accompanying her on a walk through the Godswood, and moreover that she won’t let him overexert himself. Arya, of course, leaves him in Ygritte’s care not five minutes down the path before cheerfully hopping on her bike to go visit her friends in the village.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t manage to spirit you out to the grotto,” she says as they set slowly down the path, and she is, truly. Ygritte hasn’t been back to those caves in nearly two years, not since… Well, she hadn’t wanted to return. Not without him.

“There’s plenty of time for that,” he responds, gloved hand coming to rest on hers, the one tucked securely under his arm.

“Is that a promise, Jon Stark?” she asks, feeling the ends of her lips tip upwards. “Only we never did get that swim in.”

It’s like she’s been holding her breath in forever, waiting for the breach, and only now in this place can she break through the surface and let out what she’s been holding in all this time. Oh, how good it feels. To poke and needle at him, to watch his eyes shift awkwardly and the pink flush into his cheeks - this, after all, was how it started all those years ago. A little girl in a strange place, whose entire world had just fallen apart, determined that if she could only manage to make the quiet, serious boy from the big house smile even once, then maybe everything was going to turn out alright.

Only now Jon doesn’t blush. He doesn’t mumble, or shift the too-large hands and suddenly-lanky limbs he doesn’t quite know what to do with. No, they’ve come far past that.

He does smile, though, and stops them where they are.

“We’ll go back there,” he says, pulling his hands from hers to place them around her neck. “It’s a promise.”

Her lips meet the corner of his, soft and careful, and it _is_ a kiss, full of all the words she has not said, all the things she has seen and thought and wished for since he marched away. It’s a reminder, that’s all, but then he deepens the kiss, his hands warm as they cup her cheeks, and Ygritte closes her fists tightly around the lapels of his coat as she pulls him closer to her, closing the irksome bit of space that still remains between them. _You’re mine_ , she thinks as she loses herself in the familiar taste of him, realising it in a way she simply hadn’t before, a way that seems to span out in every direction. Her future, her past, all of it. _I’m yours. And you’re mine._

Jon’s hands trace down her cheeks, down her neck, and she’s about to protest as his mouth leaves hers, but then she feels his fingers catch hold of the delicate chain around her neck.

“Do you know what Robb told me last night?” he asks, breathless, lifting free the chain and the ring it bears, their foreheads still pressed together.

“I’d really rather not talk about Robb right now, if it’s all the same to you,” she gasps, regaining her breath, but her heart is pounding, as if she knows what he’s about to say before he says it.

“He said it’s time we had something to celebrate,” Jon says, pressing his lips to her forehead. “He’s right.”

 

There have been precious few times in his life that Jon has been glad not to have a mother, and this is one of them. The prospect of doing this twice makes him feel ill.

Father says nothing for some moments, the warm glow of autumn light cast through the window of his study illuminating the well-worn lines of his face. There are grey hairs woven through the black of his neat-trimmed beard. For the first time, Lord Eddard Stark looks old to his son. When he speaks at last, it’s with all the same reserved calm Jon’s learned to expect from him.

“She's not... in trouble?”

Jon blinks, then feels a rush of heat start to pool into his cheeks. He ought to have expected this, for why else do well-born men marry housemaids? Except they don’t, not really - he’s living proof of that. And how Father could think that he, _he_ of all people could be so reckless, so careless… But then he realises. You don’t marry the help. It’s precisely because of how he was brought into this world that it might be assumed he’d want to do right by a girl he’d ruined that way. Jon doesn’t know whether he wants to hug or scream at his father.

Instead, he simply says, “No.”

Father runs a hand through his hair and says, “No, I didn’t think she would be.”

At least he gives him some credit.

“Sit down, Jon,” he says. Jon sits. “I must apologise,” he continues heavily. “for a great many things. For the awkwardness that has followed you all your life, for any time you felt shut out from me or your siblings. But it never once occurred to me that you thought so little of your place here, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

“What?” asks Jon, a ringing starting up in his ears.

Father claps him on the shoulder, looks him straight in the eye. “Jon, you are a Stark. You understand? A _Stark_. There will be no title, but that still means something. And there _will_ be money. I know the war must make everything seem so terribly bleak now, but you have great things in your future. To marry so far beneath your station… I'd like you to understand, you do have options. I’d thought perhaps someone of new money, perhaps Mace Tyrell’s daughter - ”

“You’ve got it all so wrong.”

The words escape his mouth before he can stop them and that, Jon thinks, is probably a good thing. For all that he’s twenty-one years old, there will always be that small part of him that seeks the approval of the only parent he’s got, but this is hardly the time to indulge it. 

The frown lines on Father’s face crease in response. “Well, then,” he says, “By all means, enlighten me as to what has put this foolish notion in your head.”

“It’s not so foolish.”

“It’s very foolish. You’re asking me to have a daughter-in-law who serves the rest of the family dinner.”

“She’d leave service, of course.”

“To be your wife? She'll never be received by society - ”

“I love her,” Jon says abruptly, standing because he cannot do this feeling like a small boy begging his father’s approval. “Call me a fool but I love her. I always have. I always will. She fights me and challenges me every day, and God help me, I love her for it. And you cannot convince me that this is madness because any obstacle you show me is one she’s already pointed out. Society will mock her? They mock me enough as it is, we should be quite used to it. She’ll come with me to Oxford while I finish school. Then up to Edinburgh, if Mormont will still have me. Like you said, there’ll be money, and should you wish to cut me off for this, I should be making quite enough on my own.” 

He stops, if only to catch his breath, and is suddenly aware that he’d been on the verge of shouting. He takes a deep, steadying breath and says, “I’m a Stark, Father, but I’m not a lord. I have a choice. And I’ve made it.”

 

It doesn’t get easier after that, not really, but when Ygritte Wilde becomes Ygritte Stark in the little church in Winter Town the next April, Tormund is there, and Arya, along with the rest of Jon’s family. Although he cannot see them, Robb is quick to make the first of many toasts, and Ygritte can’t help but notice the blush that comes across Nurse Westerling - “Jeyne, you must call me Jeyne” - when she mentions how handsome he looks.

Ygritte has eyes only for her husband.

Nights see them wide awake long past when they ought to have gone to bed, her quizzing him on points from his old textbooks before finally she’s unable to control herself any longer, closing the book shut with finality and stopping his recitations with a kiss and an invitation to bed. In August, they pack their things and move south for the winter. With her help, Jon’s retaught himself enough to pick up where he left off, and ought to graduate in two years. Ygritte doesn’t mention the women’s meetings she’s begun attending. Not yet, anyway.

Jon still dreams at night, dreams of terrible things that he only tells her about because she makes him. Little girls with scars and men with their insides spilling out and a sweet sickly smell that foretells almost certain doom. Now, at least, Ygritte is there at night to kiss away the screams before they leave his lips.


End file.
